Always

Senior photo with inscription:

Nancy
Remember all the fun we had in gym and our other classes.
Best of luck to a sweet girl.
Always,
Kathy

Found in "Christy" by Catherine Marshall. Published by Mcgraw-Hill, 1967.

Come Sit A Spell

Photo.

Found in "My Place: An Aborigines Stubborn Quest for Her Truth Heritage and Origins" by Sally Morgan. Published by Seaver/Henry Holt, 1987.

Wagons West

Photo of two wagon racers.

Found in "Photo Craft" by Leslie Linsley and Jon Aron. Published by Delacorte, 1980.

Too Big For My Britches

FB made The Guardian's book blog.
And a million other blog mentions.

Too exciting. Glad to be sharing this great stuff with so many people.

Mr. Runnels Goes To Washington

Baseball card from the 1950s featuring Washington Senator shortstop Pete Runnels.

Found in "The Golden Warrior" by Hope Muntz. Published by Scribners, 1950.

Open Toed Shoes

Today's post comes from author Jan Markley.

From Jan:

I have a friend who loans me books and there are always weird bookmarks left in them. I have her copy of Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh and inside was a sticky note that read: "11 am wear open toed shoes," a scrap of paper with " thievery corporation" scrawled on it, a costco card and a coupon for a manicure.

And The Winner Is...

I'm sure you all just want me to get to the name of the winner, but first things first.

I want you all to know that I tried to be as fair as possible. I copied all 222 comments from the Giveaway post and pasted them into TextPad, which provides me with line numbers. There were 969 total lines.

Next, I went over to Random.org for some number generation. 969 was the max.

Finally, the moment of truth.

Who's #693?

Congrats to pH!

Thank you to all who entered. Some of you already know that I have giveaways on a fairly regular basis, especially though Twitter - so keep an eye out, and good luck next time.

This and That

First of all, hello all you Redditors and Metafilterites. The blog has been making the rounds this weekend, I hope all the new visitors take a nice look around.


As you have noticed, this weekend's giveaway has a record number of comments. I believe we had a contest a few months ago with 20 entries, but this one is well over 100.

Someone pointed me in the direction of an Abebooks post on our favorite subject.

Finally, one of our readers wanted to share one of his own forgotten bookmarks:
Here's the original post on Flickr: Leaf in a Book
The pic for all of you to enjoy:

Giveaway:UPDATE - CONTEST HAS ENDED

UPDATE: Ok, due to the gigantic amount of entries, I will set the deadline for Sunday night, 11:59 EST. Will announce winner at noon EST on Monday. Good luck everyone.



Hey guys - I thought I would throw up a contest for the weekend. Up for grabs is a 1941 Heritage Press edition of Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass," complete in one volume. Contains the Tenniel illustrations and comes in a nifty slipcase. Just leave a comment below to let me know you're interested in entering. I'll announce the winner on Monday around noon.

Contest is closed. Thanks to all who entered.

Added Joys

Anniversary telegram, dated Jun 25th, 1938:

CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR ANNIVERSARY MAY EACH NEW ONE BRING ADDED JOYS. =
GERTRUDE MORGAN

Found in "Lanterns in the Night" by Paul Eldridge. Published by Haldeman-Julius, Girard, Kansas, 1945.

ED: Telegrams are great - can you still send them? Before I die, I'd like to get a telegram.

Press Forward, Wounded Souls

Notice of death, printed on fine paper. 8.5 inches by 11 inches.

Found in "History of Otsego County, New York." Published by Everts & Fariss, 1878.

Old Reed Homestead

Photo with writing:

The house with the bulging brick sides, propped up with poles. Near Richmond Mills. Memorial Day 1940. NY"

Found in "One Moment Please!" by James Keller. Published by Doubleday, 1950.

ED: The Reed Homestead is located in Richmond in Onatario County, NY.

From "A History of Ontario County, New York and its People" by Charles F. Milliken, Lewis Historical Publishing Co:

Richmond Mills and Dennison's Corners.

Asa Dennison and Levi Blackmer came to this locality in 1795. They settled at what is now Denuison's Corners, because of the fine stand of timber, thinking that this denoted fertile land. Dennison contracted for one hundred and fifty acres for three dollars an acre. He soon built a tavern, a framed structure, two stories high and forty feet square. The building had a fine ball room and was noted for the festive parties that took place there. Later Mr. Dennison, by the erection of an addition, doubled the size of the original building and made two ball rooms. Here he kept tavern for sixty years. The bill of fare was plain but substantial. It is said that it was principally bread, pork, potatoes, and whiskey—last named but first called for. That part of the old farm passed through many hands and was at last acquired by Richmond Blackmer. Levi Blackmer bought one hundred and fifty acres for three dollars an acre, paying $100 down on the purchase price. He cut and cleared some land and piled his first brush heap on a knoll a few rods south of the Richmond Blackmer house. On September 5. 1799, he married Hannah Pitts, daughter of Captain Pitts. They raised seven children, of whom Richmond, the youngest, lived on the old homestead for years.

Roswell Turner bought land on Hemlock lake outlet in 179d, made a clearing, and two years later moved to Allen's Hill. Calvin Ward, with his wife and young son, Harry, came from Vermont in 1816. He bought fifty acres of land at twenty dollars an acre. This land formed part of the Harry Ward farm. Ward raised wheat and made it into flour and drew it to Albany. Philip Reed came in 1795 from Vermont. He found that five families had preceded him. He bought land till he had fifteen hundred acres, most of which his descendants now own. Reed and Chipman built the first brick house in town, the original Reed homestead, the brick being made on Chipman's land. This is now known as the Fayette D. Short house, north of Richmond Mills. The house was begvm in 1802 and finished in 1804. The timbers were cut on the Short farm. The bricks were made across the road in the field now owned by C. E. Reed. The nails were hand forged by a blacksmith in the "Hollow." The contract stated that the men were to receive one gill of whiskey per day, besides their wages. The one hundredth anniversary of the completion of the building was observed by the Shorts in 1904.

Mr. Reed was considered wealthy, as he had $3,000 to pay for his land, and he built a grist and saw mill just above Richmond Mills. Isaac Adams came as Reed's hired man and bought one hundred acres. Colonel Lyman Hawes came on foot in 1812. He had served on the Niagara frontier. He worked at blacksmithing for John Abbey for some time, at sixteen dollars a month. He bought land and engaged in wheat-raising and wool-growing and became a prominent man. George McClure, of Bath, sent some goods to Allen's Hil! in 1809 and '10. In 1810, Amos and John Dixon opened a store at Dennison's Corners. They carried a general line of goods, including a hogshead of West India rum, and had a good trade. Parley Brown and Luther Stanley were also early settlers. John Dixon resided for some years at Canandaigua and lived to a ripe old age.

David

Letter on thick-stock personalized card.

Julia *****

Dearest David,
I am returning the beautiful necklace you gave me - not as a gesture if finality of our friendship, but because it is a special token in your family and I could not in good conscience keep it. I hope you understand that I do and will care deeply for you and that I have every bit of confidence in the beauty of your unique David-ness. I am just selfishly at a point in my life at which I can not make the sacrifices and take the risks that are necessary to make any relationship that we would have work. We are both at such profound transition points in our lives, and our situations are too unstable to offer the foundation necessary upon which to build the tremendous life changes that we idealistically believed possible. I want to know and believe, as I think you do, that I will always be a loving and caring friend & confidante to you - I know you would reciprocate that. Thank you for remaining the David I will always adore! Your strength and beauty will perpetually preserve that.

Much love
Julia
4/5/00

Found in "The Remains of the Day" by Kazuo Ishiguro. Published by Vintage, 1990.

My Gift To The Internet

Behold:



Three photos.
No words for them.
Should have sent a poet.

Not that it matters, but I found them in this book:
"Frank Frazetta's Death Dealer: Book 3: Tooth and Claw." Published by Tor, 1989.

Forgiven

Letter, no date.

Mrs. Prekmus(?),

Since I have no time soon where I can sit down and talk to you so I decided it would be just as well to write.

When you brought up my writing in your classes, I began thinking about those years. The Lord was really working in my life because when I got home, the notebook on the Bill Gothand (?) meetings was out. Out of interest I began reading in the various sections -- such as the ones on conscience, etc. As I read, I was quickly reminded of a specific instance which occurred when I was either in the 4th or 5th grade.

On a memory verse test, we were given a passage of about 3 or 4 verses, and I had asked my mother to type out the verses on a note card. Since I hadn't memorized the passage well, as the last minute I became scared and I decided to keep the card out, beneath my paper "just in case I needed to use it." Since I had never cheated on tests, assignments, etc. before -- and haven't since then, this one incident has remained in my mind for quite some time. At the time I felt it was too small to worry about, for I had copied very little. But as time has passed, I have realized that regardless of the "size" of a wrongdoing, it is very important, and shouldn't be overlooked. Although I asked forgiveness for it, I now know that I will never have real peace until I am completely forgiven.

I know that you will understand how I feel in this matter, for I have learned a great deal through it. I will always be thankful to you for all that you taught me in those two years, and I consider myself pretty lucky to have you as a teacher for two years out of the ten I spent at Faith Baptist. Thank you again --

Sincerely

Susan

P.S. I'll try to stop by to read some of those papers of mine some time!

Found in "Black Voices" edited by Abraham Chapman. Published by Mentor, 1968.

Ask For It

Advertisement for "Midnight Zephyr."

Found in "Wyoming" by George Peck. Published by Harper & Brothers, 1858.

One Knife

Receipt for one knife from Vendome - 1900, Curaçao. Dated 3-4-1971.

Found in "Tik-Tok of Oz" by L. Frank Baum. Published by Reilly & Britton, 1914.

Valuable Offer

Coupon for Octagon Soap Chips (buy one get one free!) The date line is punched "43826."

Found in "Lou Gehrig: Boy of the Sand Lots" by Guernsey Van Riper, Jr.. Published by Bobbs Merrill, 1949.

We're A Happy Family, We're A Happy Family

Big family photo, 8.5 inches by 11 inches.

Found in "Lebanese Cooking" by Susan Ward. Published by Chartwell Books, 2003.

Chilly

Photo, 4.5 inches by 3 inches. On reverse is written "looking at Vaughn Road Jan. 1937."

Found in "Sunlight Almanac - 1896" Published by Lever Brothers.

Stylish Garments: Why We Love Old Paper Things

I've thought a lot about old books, old paper, ephemera - all the things I come across on a day-to-day basis. One of the blogs on our blogroll, and one of the sites that make it to my iGoogle page, is This Old Paper; they seem to think about this sort of thing as much as I do. They were nice enough to write up a post about Forgotten Bookmarks, and more specifically, our bookstore.

Looking though their site, I wonder what it is about these old things that fascinates us. Why are we drawn to a simple note, a single sentence, just because it was written 100 years ago? We come across words that old all the time, and choose to ignore them. Often, we ignore them because they are old words, tired words (I'm looking at you, Charles Dickens). No, it must be the intimacy of the words, the moment. I like to think we are part-time anthropologists, dreaming up the birth and death of of these old things, the wheres and the whys; imagining the postcard dropped in box in 1910, the candlelight flickering across the parchment as a tired father reaches across the miles with his words to his family back home, a bored student passing the time in his 1951 Latin class by doodling the teacher with a monkey's butt...

I have conjured up all these things and more, and I am just starting to realize that I prefer my version of history to anything that might have really happened. I am sure their lives were nearly as droll as ours.

Today's post is for you, T.O.P., and for all of you that just enjoy old things:

No Bones About It

Advertising card for O'Hara's Farm Implement Sales, Franklin, NY.

Found in "Timeliner" by Charles Eric Maine. Published by Rinehart, 1955.

Frail

Full page color illustration from an unknown book. There is some scribbling on the reverse.

Found folded in half in "Frail Anne Boleyn" by Benedict Fitzpatrick. Published by Dial Press, 1931.

ED: Love that dust jacket cover.

From The Office of Governor

One day left on our auction, check it out.

Raised Seal of Washington State and signed index card from the office of Washington governor Clarence D. Martin.

Martin served two terms as the governor of the state of Washington from 1933 to 1940.

Found in "Robert Frost: The Aim Was Song" by Jean Gould. Published by Dodd and Mead, 1964.

Dinner and Dance

Ticket for dinner and dance supporting the Dreizpitzer Bowling Club.

Found in "Eidolon" by J. David Stern. Published by Julian Messner, 1952.

Flapper Fanny

Another strange find today, an old Latin textbook, "Collar and Daniell's First Year Latin" revised by Thorton Jenkins, published by Ginn, 1901. On the front and rear endpapers are some interesting drawings and scribbles, as well as a bonus FB, a nice drawing of an insect stinger.

Enjoy, and don't forget about our eBay auction.